All modern profilers include an oven set-up tool. Your profiler must be mapped to the environment of your reflow oven in order to provide an accurate profile. If you have any built in offsets for problematic zones or any other variables that make your oven truly unique, your profiler has no idea how many zones it is looking at. In my experience, I have yet to see any two reflow ovens create EXACTLY the same profile due to the variability of exhaust, oven controls, TCs, etc…
Some profiling software packages attempt to make your life easier with a pre-loaded oven library, but for the reasons discussed in prior blogs, it is still likely you will need to make further modifications. Some profiling software packages will automate the process of mapping the profiler to the oven. For example, the KIC system will sacrifice channel one of the profiler to act as an on/off trigger as well as a sensor for determining its position relative to oven zones. This eliminates the need to manually trigger the profile run and take physical measurements of each discrete heating zone making your job even easier! Easier still is that setting up your oven only needs to be done once unless, of course, you want to make changes to your original settings.
